I am playing a one shot game this week with my normal group (middle optimization most times, because two of us read this board) and our game is a one shot 21st level game. I asked if I could make all the characters, but most have decided to make their own. As I said, not very optimized.

The DM we play with can and will make fully deadly (by this boards counts even...) encounters when he wants, and I fear my fellow players will die fast and hard.

I am going to play a somewhat optimized leaderlord (maybe a hint of hitting for damage, I will be a leader) at 21 from the great LDB "Chasing Glory" thread.

However, while giving attacks will be fun, a leaderlord is being shoved onto a player who likes to play a controller. I remember a thread that made dragonbreath a very nice thing, with a bunch of feats to help.

I can post my whole build, but it is leader/strikerlord, not great optimized stuff. I want to be a leader/dragonborn breath guy.

What I would like is the best/most useful dragon breath info. I have five feats left open.

We have a Vampire and a Cavalier so far. One has already sent the DM a question asking what he can do better with his character (apparently besides choosing vampire!).

Perhaps killing the players in my group isn't so hard. Help me save them!?

Really, it usually isn't worth investing resources to buff an encounter power you only get to use (by its nature) once per encounter. There are two types of Dragonbreath optimization: None because why? and making it effectively at-will then adding **** onto it till you run out of feats.

I remember seeing a thread about optimizing the breath, largely because my buddies like it, optimizing or not. There was a thread that figured out every good thing about it, I wanted to play that character, given a one shot.

I won't be a sorceror, but a warlord. I appreciate your class change suggestion.

If I want to be a warlord dragonborn, and find a usefull group of feats, would Multiclassing as a Sorceror be useful?

No. You need to be a full class Sorcerer or a hybrid to recharge it and, again, it really isn't worth investing when it is only a once (at most twice) encounter resource. The Dragonbreath build is based around a Sorcerer only feat that requires a class feature to take, so you have to be a Sorcerer. And it isn't a build that is effective if you dabble in it, that is all you'll be doing and every choice you make will in some way contribute to it.

There is a martial epic feat that says when you kill something you regain your breath. I've seen it used frequently enough to justify a couple feats to buff it up.I recommend acid for -5 to all defenses, very leadery power. Pick avatar of IO and get some extra damage type stuff. Throw on MC cleric/paladin and radiant breath then go how wild with that reagent that administers radiant vulnerability 5 when you hit with a radiant power. Hurl breath for best effects, unless you think blast 3 will be sufficient. Ring of the dragonborn and a scepter of arkosia implies you only have a 1 handed weapon and no shield, which will hurt.

Warlord breath dragonborn is definitely doable. Minor action that takes down their defenses by 5 is superb for the nova round. The problem is accuracy which requires the scepter and some gold investment. At will recharge is only doable with a dragon soul dragonborn sorcerer, but sometimes encounter/circustance refreshing is sufficent.

Another option to consider is the dragonfear power instead, which is a very leadery power (burst 5 enemies only. Hit: -2 attack + grant CA) all for a minor action. No more feats and cheese is necessary and gets you mostly there. Burst 5 means that someone will get hit.

if you want to be very very chessy then all you need to do is be a sorc and take Ancient Soul, then cut yourself with a lightning dagger, while making your AC as low as possible so you only miss on ones.

you do a small amount of damage to yourself then regain breath and can then use it as a minor action on your turn.

there also is a paragon path that lets you regain it when you action point, so you can use it twice during the first two rounds of combat.

if you build your character around it you can get some crazy comtrol and good damge, like brokenly good

Insulting someones grammar on a forum is like losing to someone in a drag race and saying they were cheating by having racing stripes.
Not only do the two things not relate to each other (the logic behind the person's position, and their grammar) but you sound like an idiot for saying it (and you should, because its really stupid )

if you want to be very very chessy then all you need to do is be a sorc and take Ancient Soul, then cut yourself with a lightning dagger, while making your AC as low as possible so you only miss on ones.

you do a small amount of damage to yourself then regain breath and can then use it as a minor action on your turn.

there also is a paragon path that lets you regain it when you action point, so you can use it twice during the first two rounds of combat.

if you build your character around it you can get some crazy comtrol and good damge, like brokenly good

Um, that doesn't work. You can attack yourself, sure... but it is a standard to do so. There are no rules for cutting yourself and wasting a standard to recharge your breath while hurting yourself severely is not worth it.

The Infinite Dragonbreath build is heavily item dependent and at best does not do as much damage as other optimized builds (even Sorcerer ones) and it does so at the cost of dealing a lot of damage to itself.

if you want to be very very chessy then all you need to do is be a sorc and take Ancient Soul, then cut yourself with a lightning dagger, while making your AC as low as possible so you only miss on ones.

you do a small amount of damage to yourself then regain breath and can then use it as a minor action on your turn.

there also is a paragon path that lets you regain it when you action point, so you can use it twice during the first two rounds of combat.

if you build your character around it you can get some crazy comtrol and good damge, like brokenly good

Um, that doesn't work. You can attack yourself, sure... but it is a standard to do so. There are no rules for cutting yourself and wasting a standard to recharge your breath while hurting yourself severely is not worth it.

The Infinite Dragonbreath build is heavily item dependent and at best does not do as much damage as other optimized builds (even Sorcerer ones) and it does so at the cost of dealing a lot of damage to itself.

sure its a standard action to attack yourself but then you can use your minor to attack. you attack yourself with a melee basic, useing a +1 weapon (or as low as you can get a verson of a weapon you are resistant too) and adding as little damage to the roll as possible. and you keep a bag of items and powers that give you temps and such, or just have a good healer.

in late paragon and epic the damage is good, but its a HUGE area like blast 6-8, you can hit everthing and with epic feats you can do things like daze, push con mod, slow, mark all at will.

in P1 the damage is so much as to not need a party, it was so big and the control even at that level is so good.

Insulting someones grammar on a forum is like losing to someone in a drag race and saying they were cheating by having racing stripes.
Not only do the two things not relate to each other (the logic behind the person's position, and their grammar) but you sound like an idiot for saying it (and you should, because its really stupid )

Insulting someones grammar on a forum is like losing to someone in a drag race and saying they were cheating by having racing stripes.
Not only do the two things not relate to each other (the logic behind the person's position, and their grammar) but you sound like an idiot for saying it (and you should, because its really stupid )

Congratulations on achieving mediocre DPR at the cost of numerous feats and durability?

mediocre DPR for one target yes, much better then mediocre when you can hit everything over area burst three (could make it area burst 4 if you add fire to your breath then go master of flame),

plus enough at will control to do more then most controlers can do, being able to push 3-6 daze, slow is practily a stun on any melee heavy creatures, and is very good on the rest

if you have a action point your first two rounds will see this go off twice, besides the amazing control you will do a average of 110 damage over a 7x7 area, or 165 if you go a paragon path that gives you breath back or gives you a move action when you action point, so you would get it off 5 times during your first two turns instead of 4.

and I could have pumped the damage higher, if I went MC fighter instead of palidan I could mark every time I hit then do Str mod damage when I hit a marked target. and I could go with the dragonborn epic destony to bump my Str by 2, and get +2,+2 after I use my dragon breath. so your average damage could go to something like 68 (probably more, or 340 over two turns if you max it out)

and I doubt it would be that squshy given that you can take items and powers solely for their ability to help you survive, besides its not like anyone will get to you when you slow and dazed at least once a turn every round

Insulting someones grammar on a forum is like losing to someone in a drag race and saying they were cheating by having racing stripes.
Not only do the two things not relate to each other (the logic behind the person's position, and their grammar) but you sound like an idiot for saying it (and you should, because its really stupid )

And then somebody looks at you, as you are standing there, with no armor at all, already damaged, and with not a lot of HP, and you die at the end the round. Being hit on a 2 is not a good situation to be in.

Doesn't sound like a very good idea. Ranged enemies will massacre you badly.

Epic Dungeon Master

Want to give your players a kingdom of their own? I made a 4e rule system to make it happen!

first I have a healer for a reason, second every utlity power can be a skill power to heal myself, third I have items to heal me, make me insubstancal and whatnot.

most ranged strikers will be hit easily anyway, being hit on a 2 on one defence rather then needing a 6 or 7 is not huge.

and if the ranged striker is dead before his second turn his party did something wrong

and please show me how "real" controlers can mass dominate as a encounter power at level 21, for 3-4 rounds on a reguar basis.

even in epic being able to push 6, daze, slow is hard control, in many cases as good as stun. on all but the smallest maps this means melee creatures will never get to attack the party, it will only have non dazed enimies on the largest maps and then probably on on the third round.

a wizard could no doubt control the same creatures but a wizard could not do that level of damage and that level of control with the same build at the same time, with one power.

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and the build has to have Argentum Alliance paragon path, I made a mistake editing it

Insulting someones grammar on a forum is like losing to someone in a drag race and saying they were cheating by having racing stripes.
Not only do the two things not relate to each other (the logic behind the person's position, and their grammar) but you sound like an idiot for saying it (and you should, because its really stupid )

your acting like I would take 60 hp a round, it would take 6 rounds of average to get to 0 hp, and that is assuming I dont use things like a encounter insubstancal item or power, the staff that gives you temps equal to doule surge value ect.

or just burn surges and use Comrades' Succor.

not to mention items to increase surge value and number of surges. you could also lose the epic crit feat and go con secondary to get surges (you would have 11+what you get from items)

the build I put up was just barebones to show what dragonbreath could do, not all the defence items and powers I would take

you would no more be a target with this build then a wizard would, and AC is common to target in melee, not as much at range at 21, and AC tends to be just damage as opossed to bad effects. damage can be healed easier then you can deal with being dominated or stuned.

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this build does the jobs of 2 or 3 other people, and does it at will. I have played with someone useing it in heroic and it was brokenly good (more so at 11 then later because damage does not scale as well as its controll does)

Insulting someones grammar on a forum is like losing to someone in a drag race and saying they were cheating by having racing stripes.
Not only do the two things not relate to each other (the logic behind the person's position, and their grammar) but you sound like an idiot for saying it (and you should, because its really stupid )

Sorry but your not doing the damage of a full optmized striker of this level, neither the control of a full controller.And you are hurting yourself on the process.

Its probably a playable build, but its hardly the most optmized way to play a sorcerer, or even a infinite breath build. (Even vampires are playable as the tests showed... and i suspect this one is still better them a vampire imo)

Play a Sorcerer/Warlord, with Nusemnee's Atonement, bolstering breath, and surprising breath, take Blazing Star Fall as your Atwill to restart infinite breath if you miss the ally or if you cant hit and ally and the enemy in the current positions, and grab both the ring of dragonborn lords, and the rod of arkhosia.

In the end you will do: Normal Sorcerer damage + Breath 2x

It will hurt but you can keep yourself alive with 2 healing minor from your own, and you can pick ALOT of immediate interrupt powers that will make you avoid damage, or will make your allies come to protect you.

I made this build for a friend that was playing a lvl11 eberron game, and it was really good. Not really the best sorcerer ever, but good dpr, some leadery, and descent survavibility using immediate interrupts.

Its not a fully optmized version, because it took less healing powers then it should, and bottered too much on trying to lead the allies in the battlefield them its needed, but it was for story purposes.Also there is more gold then it should have, but also story reasons.

But this build is playable on lvl 12+ im sure

Breath hitting for 2d6+15, and encounters hitting for 3d6+16, with direct the strike as an option and a atwill doing 1d4+15 area damage.

You can easly do ~40 at-will DPR without hurting yourself too much, or ~60 DPR with at-will + 2x breath, and by doing that you also makes all your allies do +5 damage against the target.

I'm not claiming this is the best way to build a infinite-breath build, im just saying that your build is so weak that even this one that was made partly for role-playing purposes is still better...

You are doing sub-standard damage (even accounting for the AE multiplier, your damage is below striker minimums), hurting yourself, and the build is incompetent. You have no idea what you are talking about. The fact that people who know more about the Dragonbreath build then you do (infintely more, because you don't know anything about it or you couldn't possibly post like this) should tell you you're wrong. The fact that no one is agreeing with you should also be a hint.

The reason Dragonbreath is used in this machine gun fashion is because it's a MINOR ACTION. To waste a standard action to reactivate it completely invalidates the entire reason the builds for Self-damage Dragonborn Sorcerers exist.

Your main goal is to damage yourself with the Breath, not with your own weapon. You use a Standard to use a Blast or Burst in your arsenal, or whatever you have, follow it up with your Dragonbreath (damaging yourself IN THAT ATTACK however way possible, usually with Nusemnee's Atonement as mentioned above), at which point the attack recharges and you use your leftover minor action to launch it again, and then damaging yourself with it and getting it back for another salvo next round.

Your method involves stabbing yourself with a Dagger as a standard action to recharge a power you'd use once in a turn. Coupled with your forcing your survivability down to dangerous levels, you're taxing your healers (who should not have a job that's delegated to assauging your self-sacrifice, since you're not a Defender) and making you way too attractive and easy of a target all to do damage that's admittedly better than most at-wills, but is not high enough to justify your crippled visage. Your build will not work.

For comparison, a db slammer with good survivability is a revenant Sorc|vampire/ninefold master, combining revenant and vampire tricks to survive while firing off db 2-3 times per turn, either catching yourself in your own burst with hurl breath or using the atonement feat and blasting allies. Incredibly feat intensive, but works beautifully, especially in epic with trusted casting for half damage on a miss. And not wasting any actions to recharge breath.

Has anyone found a way to this without dealing oodles of damage to yourself? In epic tier, a db sorcerer who DIDN'T pump con and DIDN'T take the Powerful Breath or Empowered Breath feats and DIDN'T increase his breaths damage in any other ways would be looking at at breath weapon that did around 3d6+ 9(8 or so from Strength, 1 or so from Con). That's an average of 19.5 damage if I'm doing that right. The resist 15 from Nusemne will take that down to 4 damage PER ALLY in the burst PER minor action spent. Thats around 8 damage per turn if you use it twice.

That's not that bad. But if you are optimizing you breath for damage and not just the extra benefits like push, daze, weakened, defence debuffs, etc... then I found ways to get this damage up to 3d10 + 41! Doing that to yourself twice per round adds up to 84 damage every round! I'm sure you can squeeze even more out of it. Any way to go for damage without killing yourself? I'd love to hear a way to make it work other than unkillable revenants, but I can't find one.

It seems to be practical for the status effects but just plain suicidal if going for damage.

Has anyone found a way to this without dealing oodles of damage to yourself? In epic tier, a db sorcerer who DIDN'T pump con and DIDN'T take the Powerful Breath or Empowered Breath feats and DIDN'T increase his breaths damage in any other ways would be looking at at breath weapon that did around 3d6+ 9(8 or so from Strength, 1 or so from Con). That's an average of 19.5 damage if I'm doing that right. The resist 15 from Nusemne will take that down to 4 damage PER ALLY in the burst PER minor action spent. Thats around 8 damage per turn if you use it twice.

That's not that bad. But if you are optimizing you breath for damage and not just the extra benefits like push, daze, weakened, defence debuffs, etc... then I found ways to get this damage up to 3d10 + 41! Doing that to yourself twice per round adds up to 84 damage every round! I'm sure you can squeeze even more out of it. Any way to go for damage without killing yourself? I'd love to hear a way to make it work other than unkillable revenants, but I can't find one.

It seems to be practical for the status effects but just plain suicidal if going for damage.

At epic it is closer to 3d6+~60 when optimized, actually.... and you have various ways of dealing with the damage. For starters: Wyrmtooth Necklace+Nusemee's+War Wizardry results you in hitting your ally, doing 1/2 damage, and transfering that damage to yourself and you have resist 40 to the exact types you just dealt. You have to do 81 damage minimum to consistently recharge by doing this though, and that is tough.

Break down: 3d6+9 (Str via the feat that allows you to change which stat you use for DB's damage)+13 (Str+4, Arcane Powers get Sorcerer damage boosts)+9 (Str again, Draconic Arrogance)+6 (Arkhosion Scepter/Ninefold/pick something)+5 (Item bonus, Ring of the Dragonborn)+3 (Draconic Spellcaster)+4 (Gifts of the Queen set bonus). Conditionally you'll have a few other things running (+2 from Avatar of Io, +3 Echoes of Thunder, etc.,) that is from memory so I know I am leaving something out... but it gets up there. You can literally do a build where every single feat boosts DB in some way.

you can also take a paragon path to add 2d6 in epic, and a feat to make all dice d10s

Insulting someones grammar on a forum is like losing to someone in a drag race and saying they were cheating by having racing stripes.
Not only do the two things not relate to each other (the logic behind the person's position, and their grammar) but you sound like an idiot for saying it (and you should, because its really stupid )

you can also take a paragon path to add 2d6 in epic, and a feat to make all dice d10s

Sigh. That PP is a sub-standard choice for the DB build, I won't go into why, and the d10 feat is actually bad. It increases the variance on DB, making you more likely to take more then the minimum to recharge it.

Ooo, war wizardy works really well! The -5 to hit allies though kind of hurts a bit. Is there a rule that allows the ally to choose to let it hit them without an attack roll being necessary? Otherwise, that could be tough hitting other optimized characters.

I checked the compendium for wyrmtooth necklace and can't find it. Anyone know what it's really called so I can see what it does?

Ooo, war wizardy works really well! The -5 to hit allies though kind of hurts a bit. Is there a rule that allows the ally to choose to let it hit them without an attack roll being necessary? Otherwise, that could be tough hitting other optimized characters. I checked the compendium for wyrmtooth necklace and can't find it. Anyone know what it's really called so I can see what it does? EDIT: ^Its the wyrmtouched amulet and boy is it great!

In theory you can optimize around missing them and either way you can take Sorcerous Flux at Epic if you took Ninefold as your PP. But in most parties someone has a low Ref. Include that guy (you're looking at roughly 39+ to hit, even after a -5 that is still really high).

You can up the single target power a bit by going hybrid Warlock|Sorcerer. Take Ninefold. There is a feat that clases DB to be blast 1 and adds 2/4/6 to the damage. Resounding Thunder makes this a blast 2. DB can trigger curse because of Ninefold. You can get an extra 4d6+6 and an extra 10 (Curse of Io's blood) while bloodied once per tur.

Also works by MCing, but giving up Fighter MC isn't worth it. If you really want to make a pure DB build a straight Con/Str stat spread will give you the highest damage. Hybrid Warlock, Hellish Rebuke as your standard, then damage yourself, triggering Hellish Rebuke (sadly only works once now, but your DPR will be way up there).